The message after a mass shooting, this time at a Texas elementary school, was clear: People who want to curb gun violence should “cast their vote in November.” That was how Senator Chuck Schumer, the Senate majority leader and Democrat of New York, put it on Wednesday...
Even by the standards of a high-powered Fortune 500 media mogul, David Zaslav has generated an inordinate number of headlines over the past year or so. And most of them involved giant gobs of money...
If any CEO has earned a big payday over the past few years, it might be Cynthia Warner. She’s not a household-name CEO. But in the three years since she became chief executive of Renewable Energy Group, a producer of “bio” diesel and other fossil-fuel alternatives, Warner has generated plenty of value for her company’s public shareholders...
Back in 2017, a new rule aimed at exposing the excesses of corporate America went into effect: Every year, most publicly traded companies would have to disclose a CEO pay ratio, comparing the compensation of the chief executive to that of the median employee...
When Tesla, the world’s leading maker of electric vehicles, was dropped last week from S&P’s ESG Index—which assesses companies’ sustainability efforts and corporate culture—it infuriated CEO Elon Musk, who immediately took to Twitter to call ESG a “scam” that is “weaponized by phony social justice warriors.” In its defense, S&P clarified that Tesla’s lack of published details related to its “low carbon strategy” or “codes of business conduct” contributed to its departure from the index and even though Tesla’s products help reduce overall carbon emissions, the company has faulted for claims of ...
Corporate boards evolve slowly. According to Corporate Board Practices in the Russell 3000 and S&P 500, the average tenure among U.S. public companies for seated directors is 9.7 years in the larger companies of the S&P 500 index, and only slightly lower (9.5 years) among the Russell 3000 index...
By now we’ve heard a lot about the universal proxy card (UPC), and how it makes life easier for activist investors and harder for companies. We set forth the highlights earlier . Many observers note UPC will lower the cost of proxy contests, and thus encourage more of them...
Coca-Cola bottling CEO's bonus puts the spotlight back on board salaries during COVID In the final stretch of spring and early summer, the vast majority of listed companies hold their shareholders' meetings. An annual event where, theoretically, investors have the ability to have a voice and a vote to express how they see the development and management of a company. A vote that, on many occasions, is of a consultative nature and, although it has no significance, it does reflect his opinion...
There has never been a neat, clean break between business and geopolitics. As far back as the eighteenth century, the American colonies boycotted British goods, culminating in the Boston Tea Party and paved the way for the establishment of the U.S. However, in recent years, corporations have seen their fates ever more tied to the surrounding political mood...
The knives are out for ESG. First, some politicians sought to make environmental, social, and governance factors in investing a right vs. left issue. Then the world’s largest investment firm said shareholders have gotten out of control by taking over this year’s proxy season with too many prescriptive ESG proposals...
Good governance is not just for public companies. Private companies today are also looking for ways to improve their board’s effectiveness—in part, by changing their board composition...
In August 2019, in the Business Roundtable’s Statement on the Purpose of a Corporation (the “BRT Statement”), numerous major company CEOs announced their commitment to deliver value to all stakeholders and not just shareholders...
“Climate change is an emerging risk to financial institutions, the financial system, and the economy,” Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell proclaimed in 2020. In doing so, Powell joined a growing chorus of policymakers, scientists, and scholars raising alarms about climate change’s potential to destabilize the global financial system...
In recent months, a trend has begun to emerge among plaintiffs’ lawyers seeking to file cybersecurity incident-related shareholder derivative lawsuits – attorneys are increasingly now filing claims specifically based on failures surrounding duty of oversight...
It is in the best interest of shareholders for companies to evaluate their board composition regularly, establish policies and processes to ensure board diversity, and disclose the composition of their boards of directors, write Michael Frerichs and John W. Rogers, Jr.,,
Activist shareholders often change the course of a company with their rhetoric. Activist investors lend their expertise and money to aid people in increasing their wealth. At times, they buy a significant stake in a publicly traded company to influence the course of its future. Those who do hold large stakes stand to make a lot of money when the company becomes profitable...
The history of mergers and acquisitions is filled with ruthless corporate raiders, bruising wars of words and people trying to stiff each other. T. Boone Pickens, the oil tycoon who rampaged through the 1980s, took small stakes in energy companies, attacked management and forced sales of the firms. Carl Icahn, the activist investor, amassed shares of companies and threatened to oust their boards if they did not agree to a deal...
S&P Dow Jones Indices’ decision this week to boot Tesla from the S&P 500 ESG Index has cast a harsh light on the role that environmental, social, and governance, or ESG ratings play in scoring companies as positive for the planet...
Once we understand how to measure the real economic impact of sustainability, we must take a step forward and think in terms of a new management model: a model in which sustainability projects are not seen as altruistic or necessary efforts but as competitive advantages...
Global deal making may have fallen out of fashion, but breaking companies up never seems to go out of style...
The Proposed Rules are of three categories: Disclosure Rules, Audit Rules, and Prohibited Activity Rules. These comments relate solely to the Prohibited Activity Rules that would forbid the following terms and conditions in investor advisory agreements...
Here’s how our board started. We founded Dialpad in 2011. There were no investors, so the board was my co-founders and me. When we raised our Series A, Wesley Chan, who was then a general partner at Google Ventures, joined us on the board. In 2012, we raised our Series B, and Marc Andreessen joined. You can probably see where this is going...
Regarding Marlo Oaks’s op-ed “S&P Hits U.S. States With Politicized Credit Scores” (May 9): The integration of environmental, social and governance (ESG) investment practices is not left-wing or right-wing. It is an apolitical practice geared toward delivering transparency so that investors can make informed decisions...
Public companies in the United States (U.S.) have completed the second year of required disclosure regarding human capital management (HCM), allowing stakeholders to compare year-over-year changes in how companies are disclosing HCM and different topics of interest...